The development of the mammalian central nervous system (CNS) begins in the early stage of fetal development and continues until the post-natal period. The mature mammalian CNS is composed of neuronal cells (neurons), and glial cells (astrocytes and oligodendrocytes).
The first step in neural development is cell birth, which is the precise temporal and spatial sequence in which stem cells and stem cell progeny (i.e daughter stem ceus and progenitor cells) proliferate. Proliferating cells will give rise to neuroblasts, glioblasts and new stem cells.
The second step is a period of cell type differentiation and migration when undifferentiated progenitor cells differentiate into neuroblasts and gliolblasts which give rise to neurons and glial cells which migrate to their final positions. Cells which are derived from the neural tube give rise to neurons and glia of the CNS, while cells derived from the neural crest give rise to the cells of the peripheral nervous system (PNS). Certain factors present during development, such as nerve growth factor (NGF), promote the growth of neural cells. NGF is secreted by cells of the neural crest and stimulates the sprouting and growth of the neuronal axons.
The third step in development occurs when cells acquire specific phenotypic qualities, such as the expression of particular neurotransmitters. At this time, neurons also extend processes which synapse on their targets. Neurons are generated primarily during the fetal period, while oligodendrocytes and astrocytes are generated during the early post-natal period. By the late post-natal period, the CNS has its full complement of nerve cells.
The final step of CNS development is selective cell death, wherein the degeneration and death of specific cells, fibers and synaptic connections “fine-tune” the complex circuitry of the nervous system. This “fine-tuning” continues throughout the life of the host. Later in life, selective degeneration due to aging, infection and other unknown etiologies can lead to neurodegenerative diseases.
Unlike many other cells found in different tissues, the differentiated cells of the adult mammalian CNS have little or no ability to enter the mitotic cycle and generate new nerve cells. While it is believed that there is a limited and slow turnover of astrocytes (Korr et al., J. Comp. Neurol., 150:169, 1971) and that progenitors for oligodendrocytes (Wolsqijk and Noble, Development, 105:386, 1989) are present, the generation of new neurons does not normally occur.
Neurogenesis, the generation of new neurons, is complete early in the postnatal period. However, the synaptic connections involved in neural circuits are continuously altered throughout the life of the individual, due to synaptic plasticity and cell death. A few mammalian species (e.g. rats) exhibit the limited ability to generate new neurons in restricted adult brain regions such as the dentate gyrus and olfactory bulb (Kaplan, J. Comp. Neurol., 195:323, 1981; Bayer, N.Y. Acad. Sci., 457:163, 1985). However, this does not apply to all mammals; and the generation of new CNS cells in adult primates does not occur (Rakic, Science, 227:1054, 1985). This inability to produce new nerve cells in most mammals (and especially primates) may be advantageous for long-term memory retention; however, it is a distinct disadvantage when the need to replace lost neuronal cells arises due to injury or disease.
The low turnover of cells in the mammalian CNS together with the inability of the adult mammalian CNS to generate new neuronal cells in response to the loss of cells following injury or disease has lead to the assumption that the adult mammalian CNS does not contain multipotent neural stem cells.
The critical identifying feature of a stem cell is its ability to exhibit self-renewal or to generate more of itself. The simplest definition of a stem cell would be a cell with the capacity for self-maintenance. A more stringent (but still simplistic) definition of a stem cell is provided by Potten and Loeffler (Development, 110:1001, 1990) who have defined stem cells as “undifferentiated cells capable of a) proliferation, b) self-maintenance, c) the production of a large number of differentiated functional progeny, d) regenerating the tissue after injury, and e) a flexibility in the use of these options.”
The role of stem cells is to replace cells that are lost by natural cell death, injury or disease. The presence of stem cells in a particular type of tissue usually correlates with tissues that have a high turnover of cells. However, this correlation may not always hold as stem cells are thought to be present in tissues (e.g., liver [Travis, Science, 259:1829, 1993]) that do not have a high turnover of cells.
CNS disorders encompass numerous afflictions such as neurodegenerative diseases (e.g. Alzheimer's and Parkinson's), acute brain injury (e.g. stroke, head injury, cerebral palsy) and a large number of CNS dysfunctions (e.g. depression, epilepsy, and schizophrenia). In recent years neurodegenerative disease has become an important concern due to the expanding elderly population which is at greatest risk for these disorders. These diseases, which include Alzheimer's Disease, Multiple Sclerosis (MS), Huntington's Disease, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, and Parkinson's Disease, have been linked to the degeneration of neural cells in particular locations of the CNS, leading to the inability of these cells or the brain region to carry out their intended function.
In addition to neurodegenerative diseases, acute brain injuries often result in the loss of neural cells, the inappropriate functioning of the affected brain region, and subsequent behavior abnormalities. Probably the largest area of CNS dysfunction (with respect to the number of affected people) is not characterized by a loss of neural cells but rather by an abnormal functioning of existing neural cells. This may be due to inappropriate firing of neurons, or the abnormal synthesis, release, and processing of neurotransmitters. These dysfunctions may be the result of well studied and characterized disorders such as depression and epilepsy, or less understood disorders such as neurosis and psychosis.
Degeneration in a brain region known as the basal ganglia can lead to diseases with various cognitive and motor symptoms, depending on the exact location. The basal ganglia consists of many separate regions, including the striatum (which consists of the caudate and putamen), the globus pallidus, the substantia nigra, substantia innominate, ventral pallidum, nucleus basalis of Meynert, ventral tegmental area and the subthalamic nucleus.
In the case of Alzheimer's Disease, there is a profound cellular degeneration of the forebrain and cerebral cortex. In addition, upon closer inspection, a localized degeneration in an area of the basal ganglia, the nucleus basalis of Meynert, appears to be selectively degenerated. This nucleus normally sends cholinergic projections to the cerebral cortex which are thought to participate in cognitive functions including memory.
Many motor deficits are a result of degeneration in the basal ganglia. Huntington's Chorea is associated with the degeneration of neurons in the striatum, which leads to involuntary jerking movements in the host. Degeneration of a small region called the subthalamic nucleus is associated with violent flinging movements of the extremities in a condition called ballismus, while degeneration in the putamen and globus pallidus is associated with a condition of slow writhing movements or athetosis. In the case of Parkinson's Disease, degeneration is seen in another area of the basal ganglia, the substantia nigra par compacta. This area normally sends dopaminergic connections to the dorsal striatum which are important in regulating movement. Therapy for Parkinson's Disease has centered upon restoring dopaminergic activity to this circuit.
Other forms of neurological impairment can occur as a result of neural degeneration, such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and cerebral palsy, or as a result of CNS trauma, such as stroke and epilepsy.
Demyelination of central and peripheral neurons occurs in a number of pathologies and leads to improper signal conduction within the nervous systems. Myelin is a cellular sheath, formed by glial cells, that surrounds axons and axonal processes that enhances various electrochemical properties and provides trophic support to the neuron. Myelin is formed by Schwann cells in the PNS and by oligodendrocytes in the CNS. Among the various demyelinating diseases MS is the most notable.
To date, treatment for CNS disorder has been primarily via the administration of pharmaceutical compounds. Unfortunately, this type of treatment has been fraught with many complications including the limited ability to transport drugs across the blood-brain barrier and the drug-tolerance which is acquired by patients to whom these drugs are administered long-term. For instance, partial restoration of dopaminergic activity in Parkinson's patients has been achieved with levodopa, which is a dopamine precursor able to cross the blood-brain barrier. However, patients become tolerant to the effects of levodopa, and therefore, steadily increasing dosages are needed to maintain its effects. In addition, there are a number of side effects associated with levodopa such as increased and uncontrollable movement.
Recently, the concept of neurological tissue grafting has been applied to the treatment of neurological diseases such as Parkinson's Disease. Neural grafts may avert the need not only for constant drug administration, but also for complicated drug delivery systems which arise due to the blood-brain barrier. However, there are limitations to this technique as well. First, cells used for transplantation which carry cell surface molecules of a differentiated cell from another host can induce an immune reaction in the host. In addition, the cells must be at a stage of development where they are able to form normal neural connections with neighboring cells. For these reasons, initial studies on neurotransplantation centered on the use of fetal cells. Perlow, et al. describe the transplantation of fetal dopaminergic neurons into adult rats with chemically induced nigrostriatal lesions in “Brain grafts reduce motor abnormalities produced by destruction of nigrostriatal dopamine system,” Science 204:643-647 (1979). These grafts showed good survival, axonal outgrowth and significantly reduced the motor abnormalities in the host animals.
In both human demyelinating diseases and rodent models there is substantial evidence that demyelinated neurons are capable of remyelination in vivo. In MS, for example, it appears that there are often cycles of de- and remyelination. Similar observations in rodent demyelinating paradigms lead to the prediction that exogenously applied cells would be capable of remyelinating demyelinated axons. This approach has proven successful in a number of experimental conditions [Freidman et al., Brain Research, 378:142-146 (1986); Raine, et al., Laboratory Investigation 59:467-476 (1988); Duncan et al., J. of Neurocytology, 17:351-360 (1988)]. The sources of cells for some of these experiments included dissociated glial cell suspensions prepared from spinal cords (Duncan et al., supra), Schwann cell cultures prepared from sciatic nerve [Bunge et al., 1992, WO 92/03536; Blakemore and Crang, J. Neurol. Sci., 70:207-223 (1985)]; cultures from dissociated brain tissue [Blakemore and Crang, Dev. Neurosci. 10:1-11 (1988)], oligodendrocyte precursor cells [Gumpel et al., Dev. Neurosci. 11:132-139 (1989)], O-2A cells [Wolswijk et al., Development 109:691-608 (1990); Raff et al., Nature 3030:390-396 (1983); Hardy et al., Development 111:1061-1080 (1991)], and immortalized O-2A cell lines, [Almazan and McKay Brain Res. 579:234-245 (1992)].
O-2A cells are glial progenitor cells which give rise in vitro only to oligodendrocytes and type II astrocytes. Cells which appear by immunostaining in vivo to have the O-2A phenotype have been shown to successfully remyelinate demyelinated neurons in vivo, [Godfraind et al., J. Cell Biol. 109:2405-2416 (1989)]. Injection of a large number of O-2A cells is required to adequately remyelinate all targeted neurons in vivo, since it appears that O-2A cells (like other glial cell preparations) do not continue to divide in vivo. Although O-2A progenitor cells can be grown in culture, currently the only available isolation technique employs optic nerve as starting material. This is a low yield source, which requires a number of purification steps. There is an additional drawback that O-2A cells isolated by the available procedures are capable of only a limited number of divisions [Raff Science 243:1450-1455 (1989)].
Although adult CNS neurons are not good candidates for neurotransplantation, neurons from the adult PNS have been shown to survive transplantation, and to exert neurotrophic and gliotrophic effects on developing host neural tissue. One source of non-CNS neural tissue for transplantation is the adrenal medulla. Adrenal chromaffin cells originate from the neural crest like PNS neurons, and receive synapses and produce carrier and enzyme proteins similar to PNS neurons. Although these cells function in an endocrine manner in the intact adrenal medulla, in culture these cells lose their glandular phenotype and develop certain neural features in culture in the presence of certain growth factors and hormones [Notter, et al., “Neuronal properties of monkey adrenal medulla in vitro, Cell Tissue Research 244:69-76 (1986)]. When grafted into mammalian CNS, these cells survive and synthesize significant quantities of dopamine which can interact with dopamine receptors in neighboring areas of the CNS.
In U.S. Pat. No. 4,980,174, transplantation of monoamine-containing cells isolated from adult rat pineal gland and adrenal medulla into rat frontal cortex led to the alleviation of learned helplessness, a form of depression in the host. In U.S. Pat. No. 4,753,635, chromaffin cells and adrenal medullary tissue derived from steers were implanted into the brain stem or spinal cord of rats and produced analgesia when the implanted tissue or cell was induced to release nociceptor interacting substances (i.e. catecholamines such as dopamine). Adrenal medullary cells have been autologously grafted into humans, and have survived, leading to mild to moderate improvement in symptoms (Watts, et al., “Adrenal-caudate transplantation in patients with Parkinson's Disease (PD):1-year follow-up,” Neurology 39 Suppl 1: 127 [1989], Hurtig, et al., “Postmortem analysis of adrenal-medulla-to-caudate autograft in a patient with Parkinson's Disease,” Annals of Neurology 25: 607-614 [1989]). However, adrenal cells do not obtain a normal neural phenotype, and are therefore probably of limited use for transplants where synaptic connections must be formed.
Another source of tissue for neurotransplantation is from cell lines. Cell lines are immortalized cells which are derived either by transformation of normal cells with an oncogene (Cepko, “Immortalization of neural cells via retrovirus-mediated oncogene transduction,” Ann. Rev. Neurosci. 12:47-65 [1989]) or by the culturing of cells with altered growth characteristics in vitro (Ronnett, et al., “Human cortical neuronal cell line: Establishment from a patient with unilateral megalencephaly,” Science 248:603-605 [1990]). Such cells can be grown in culture in large quantities to be used for multiple transplantations. Some cell lines have been shown to differentiate upon chemical treatment to express a variety of neuronal properties such as neurite formation, excitable membranes and synthesis of neurotransmitters and their receptors. Furthermore, upon differentiation, these cells appear to be amitotic, and therefore noncancerous. However, the potential for these cells to induce adverse immune responses, the use of retroviruses to immortalize cells, the potential for the reversion of these cells to an amitotic state, and the lack of response of these cells to normal growth-inhibiting signals make cell lines less than optimal for widespread use.
Another approach to neurotransplantation involves the use of genetically engineered cell types or gene therapy. Using this method, a foreign gene or transgene can be introduced into a cell which is deficient in a particular enzymatic activity, thereby allowing the cell to express the gene. Cells which now contain the transferred gene can be transplanted to the site of neurodegeneration, and provide products such as neurotransmitters and growth factors (Rosenberg, et al., “Grafting genetically modified cells to the damaged brain: Restorative effects of NGF Expression,” Science 242:1575-1578, [1988]) which may function to alleviate some of the symptoms of degeneration. However, there still exists a risk of inducing an immune reaction using currently available cell lines. In addition, these cells may also not achieve normal neuronal connections with the host tissue.
Genetically modified cells have been used in neurological tissue grafting in order to replace lost cells which normally produce a neurotransmitter. For example, fibroblasts have been genetically modified with a retroviral vector containing a cDNA for tyrosine hydroxylase, which allows them to produce dopamine, and implanted into animal models of Parkinson's Disease (Gage et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,082,670).
While the use of genetically modified fibroblasts to treat CNS disorders has shown promise in improving some behavioral deficits in animal models of Parkinson's Disease, and represents a novel approach to supplying a needed transmitter to the CNS, it suffers from several significant drawbacks as a treatment for Parkinson's Disease and in general as a therapeutic approach for treating neurodegenerative diseases and brain injury. First, the CNS is primarily composed of three cell types—neurons, astrocytes and oligodendrocytes. The implantation of a foreign cell such as a fibroblast into the CNS and its direct and indirect effects on the functioning of the host cells has yet to be studied. However, it is likely that the expression of membrane bound factors and the release of soluble molecules such as growth factors and proteases will alter the normal behavior of the surrounding tissue. This may result in the disruption of neuronal firing patterns either by a direct action on neurons or by an alteration in the normal functioning of glial cells.
Another concern that arises when fibroblasts are implanted into the CNS is the possibility that the implanted cells may lead to tumor formation because the intrinsic inhibition of fibroblast division is poorly controlled. Instead, extrinsic signals play a major role in controlling the number of divisions the cell will undergo. The effect of the CNS environment on the division of implanted fibroblasts and the high probability of a fibroblastic tumor formation has not been studied in the long-term.
A third concern in transplanting fibroblasts into the CNS is that fibroblasts are unable to integrate with the CNS cells as astrocytes, oligodendrocytes, or neurons do. Fibroblasts are intrinsically limited in their ability to extend neuronal-like processes and form synapses with host tissue. Hence, although the genetic modification and implantation of fibroblasts into the CNS represents an improvement over the current technology for the delivery of certain molecules to the CNS, the inability of fibroblasts to integrate and function as CNS tissue, their potential negative effects on CNS cells, and their limited intrinsic control of proliferation limits their practical usage for implantation for the treatment of acute or chronic CNS injury or disease.
A preferred tissue for genetic modification and implantation would be CNS cells—neurons, astrocytes, or oligodendrocytes. One source of CNS cells is from human fetal tissue. Several studies have shown improvements in patients with Parkinson's Disease after receiving implants of fetal CNS tissue. Implants of embryonic mesencephalic tissue containing dopamine cells into the caudate and putamen of human patients was shown by Freed et al. (N Engl J Med 327:1549-1555 (1992)) to offer long-term clinical benefit to some patients with advanced Parkinson's Disease. Similar success was shown by Spencer et al. (N Engl J Med 327:1541-1548 (1992)). Widner et al. (N Engl J Med 327:1556-1563 (1992)) have shown long-term functional improvements in patients with MPTP-induced Parkinsonism that received bilateral implantation of fetal mesencephalic tissue.
While the studies noted above are encouraging, the use of large quantities of aborted fetal tissue for the treatment of disease raises ethical considerations and political obstacles. There are other considerations as well. Fetal CNS tissue is composed of more than one cell type, and thus is not a well-defined source of tissue. In addition, there are serious doubts as to whether an adequate and constant supply of fetal tissue would be available for transplantation. For example, in the treatment of MPTP-induced Parkinsonism (Widner supra) tissue from 6 to 8 fetuses were used for implantation into the brain of a single patient. There is also the added problem of the potential for contamination during fetal tissue preparation. Moreover, the tissue may already be infected with a bacteria or virus, thus requiring expensive diagnostic testing for each fetus used. However, even diagnostic testing might not uncover all infected tissue. For example, the diagnosis of HIV-free tissue is not guaranteed because antibodies to the virus are generally not present until several weeks after infection.
While currently available transplantation approaches represent a significant improvement over other available treatments for neurological disorders, they suffer from significant drawbacks. The inability in the prior art of the transplant to fully integrate into the host tissue, and the lack of availability of cells in unlimited amounts from a reliable source for grafting are, perhaps, the greatest limitations of neurotransplantation.
It would be more preferable to have a well-defined, reproducible source of neural tissue for transplantation that is available in unlimited amounts. Since adult neural tissue undergoes minimal division, it does not readily meet these criteria. While astrocytes retain the ability to divide and are probably amenable to infection with foreign genes, their ability to form synapses with neuronal cells is limited and consequently so is their extrinsic regulation of the expression and release of the foreign gene product
Oligodendrocytes suffer from some of the same problems. In addition, mature oligodendrocytes do not divide, limiting the infection of oligodendrocytes to their progenitor cells (e.g. O2A cells). However, due to the limited proliferative ability of oligodendrocyte progenitors, the infection and harvesting of these cells does not represent a practical source.
The infection of neurons with foreign genes and implantation into the CNS would be ideal due to their ability to extend processes, make synapses and be regulated by the environment. However, differentiated neurons do not divide and transfection with foreign genes by chemical and physical means is not efficient, nor are they stable for long periods of time. The infection of primary neuronal precursors with retroviral vectors in vitro is not practical either because neuroblasts are intrinsically controlled to undergo a limited number of divisions making the selection of a large number of neurons, that incorporate and express the foreign gene, nearly impossible. The possibility of immortalizing the neuronal precursors by retroviral transfer of oncogenes and their subsequent infection of a desired gene is not preferred due to the potential for tumor formation by the implanted cells.
In addition to the need for a well-defined, reproducible source of neural cells available in unlimited amounts for transplantation purposes, a similar need exists for drug screening purposes and for the study of CNS function, dysfunction, and development. The mature human nervous system is composed of billions of cells that are generated during development from a small number of precursors located in the neural tube. Due to the complexity of the mammalian CNS, the study of CNS developmental pathways, as well as alterations that occur in adult mammalian CNS due to dysfunction, has been difficult. Such areas would be better studied using relatively simple models of the CNS under defined conditions.
Generally, two approaches have been taken for studying cultured CNS cells: the use of primary neural cultures; and the use of neural cell lines. Primary mammalian neural cultures can be generated from nearly all brain regions providing that the starting material is obtained from fetal or early post-natal animals. In general, three types of cultures can be produced, enriched either in neurons, astrocytes, or oligodendrocytes. Primary CNS cultures have proven valuable for discovering many mechanisms of neural function and are used for studying the effects of exogenous agents on developing and mature cells. While primary CNS cultures have many advantages, they suffer from two primary drawbacks. First, due to the limited proliferative ability of primary neural cells, new cultures must be generated from several different animals. While great care is usually taken to obtain tissue at identical states of development and from identical brain regions, it is virtually impossible to generate primary cultures that are identical. Hence, there exists a significant degree of variability from culture to culture.
A second disadvantage of primary cultures is that the tissue must be obtained from fetuses or early post-natal animals. If primary cultures are to be performed on a regular basis, this requires the availability of a large source of starting material. While this is generally not a problem for generating primary cultures from some species (e.g. rodents), it is for others (e.g. primates). Due to the limited supply and ethical concerns, the culturing of primary cells from primates (both human and non-human) is not practical.
Due to the limited proliferative ability of primary neural cells, the generation of a large number of homogenous cells for studies of neural function, dysfunction, and drug design/screening has previously not been achieved. Therefore, homogenous populations of cells that can generate a large number of progeny for the in vitro investigation of CNS function has been studied by the use of cell lines. The generation of neural cell lines can be divided into two categories: 1) spontaneously occurring tumors, and 2) custom-designed cell lines.
Of the spontaneously occurring tumors, probably the most studied cell line for neurobiology is the rat pheochromocytoma (PC12) cells that can differentiate into sympathetic-like neurons in response to NGF. These cells have proven to be a useful model for studying mechanisms of neural development and alterations (molecular and cellular) in response to growth factors. Neuroblastoma and glioma cell lines have been used to study neuronal and glial functioning [Liles, et al., J. Neurosci. 7, 2556-2563 (1987); Nister et al. Cancer Res. 48(14) 3910 (1988)]. Embryonal carcinoma cells are derived from teratoma tumors of fetal germ cells and have the ability to differentiate into a large number of non-neural cell types with some lines (e.g. P19 cells) [Jones-Villeneuve et al. J. Cell Biol. 94, 253-262 (1982)] having the ability to differentiate into neural cells [(McBurney et al. J. Neurosci. 8(3) 1063-73 (1993)]. A human teratocarcinoma-derived cell line, NTera 2/cl.D1, with a phenotype resembling CNS neuronal precursor cells, can be induced to differentiate in the presence of retinoic acid. However, the differentiated cells are restricted to a neuronal phenotype [Pleasure and Lee J. Neurosci. Res. 35: 585-602 (1993)]. While these types of cell lines are able to generate a large number of cells for screening the effects of exogenous agents on cell survival or function, the limited number of these types of lines, the limited number of phenotypes that they are able to generate and the unknown nature of their immortalization (which may effect the function of the cells in an undefined manner) makes these types of cell lines less than ideal for in vitro models of neural function and discovery of novel therapeutics.
An alternative approach to spontaneously occurring cell lines is the intentional immortalization of a primary cell by introducing an oncogene that alters the genetic make-up of the cell thereby inducing the cell to proliferate indefinitely. This approach has been used by many groups to generate a number of interesting neural cell lines [(Bartlett et al. Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. 85(9) 3255-3259 (1988); Frederiksen et al. Neuron 1, 439-448 (1988); Trotter et al. Oncogene 4: 457-464 (1989); Ryder et al. J. Neurobiol. 21: 356-375 (1980); Murphy et al. J. Neurobiol 22: 522-535 (1991); Almazan and McKay et al. Brain Res. 579: 234-245 (1992)]. While these lines may prove useful for studying the decisions that occur during cell determination and differentiation, and for testing the effects of exogenous agents, they suffer from several drawbacks. First, the addition of an oncogene that alters the proliferative status of a cell may affect other properties of the cell (oncogenes may play other roles in cells besides regulating the cell cycle). This is well illustrated in a study by Almazan and McKay, supra, and their immortalization of an oligodendrocyte precursor from the optic nerve which is unable to differentiate into type II astrocytes (something that normal optic nerve oligodendrocyte precursors can do). The authors suggest the presence of the immortalizing antigen may alter the cells ability to differentiate into astrocytes.
Another drawback to using intentionally immortalized cells results from the fact that the nervous system is composed of billions of cells and possibly thousands of different cell types, each with unique patterns of gene expression and responsiveness to their environment. A custom-designed cell line is the result of the immortalization of a single progenitor cell and its clonal expansion. While a large supply of one neural cell type can be generated, this approach does not take into account cellular interactions between different cell types. In addition, while it is possible to immortalize cells from a given brain region, immortalization of a desired cell is not possible due to the lack of control over which cells will be altered by the oncogene. Hence, while custom designed cell lines offer a few advantages over spontaneously occurring tumors, they suffer from several drawbacks and are less than ideal for understanding CNS function and dysfunction.
Therefore, in view of the aforementioned deficiencies attendant with prior art methods of neural cell culturing, transplantation, and CNS models, a need exists in the art for a reliable source of unlimited numbers of undifferentiated neural cells for neurotransplantation and drug screening which are capable of differentiating into neurons, astrocytes, and oligodendrocytes. Preferably cellular division in such cells from such a source would be epigenetically regulated and a suitable number of cells could be efficiently prepared in sufficient numbers for transplantation. The cells should be suitable in autografts, xenografts, and allografts without a concern for tumor formation. There exists a need for the isolation, perpetuation and transplantation of autologous neural cells from the juvenile or adult brain that are capable of differentiating into neurons and glia.
A need also exists for neural cells, capable of differentiating into neurons, astrocytes and oligodendrocytes that are capable of proliferation in vitro and thus amenable to genetic modification techniques.
Additionally, there exists a need for the repair of damaged neural tissue in a relatively non-invasive fashion, that is by inducing neural cells to proliferate and differentiate into neurons, astrocytes, and oligodendrocytes in vivo, thereby averting the need for transplantation.
Accordingly, a major object of the present invention is to provide a reliable source of an unlimited number of neural cells for neurotransplantation that are capable of differentiating into neurons, astrocytes, and oligodendrocytes.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a method for the in vitro proliferation of neural stem cells from embryonic, juvenile and adult brain tissue, to produce unlimited numbers of precursor cells available for transplantation that are capable of differentiating into neurons, astrocytes, and oligodendrocytes.
A further object of the invention is to provide methods for inducing neural cells to proliferate and differentiate in vivo, thereby averting the need for neurotransplantation.
A still further object of the invention is to provide a method of generating large numbers of normal neural cells for the purpose of screening putative therapeutic agents targeted at the nervous system and for models of CNS development, function, and dysfunction.